After the spar ended in a delicate hush, like fog thinning after rain, Yekase hurried to carry the unarmored Ling Yi back to her room like cradling porcelain. She checked breath and pulse like counting beads, then finally let a long sigh drift like a kite cut loose.

Ling Yi didn’t stir until after one, her eyelids fluttering like tired moths.

“Doctor…” Her voice rose like a thin wisp of smoke.

“Don’t tap your Mind Energy on your own again.” Yekase’s tone was a steady bell in a quiet shrine.

“…What about Flash Energy?” Ling Yi’s eyes glinted like wet glass.

“No.” The refusal dropped like a stone into a still pond.

Turning that railgun into a real cannon was clearly Flash Energy at work, like dry tinder catching bright. Find a trick you’re good at, and you spam it like rain on tin roofs—classic rookie mistake.

“The mecha has preset circuits and power caps, like guardrails on a cliff road. When you do it yourself, output and method all ride on gut feeling, which is walking a tightrope in the wind.”

“Then when I… feel fluent?” Her hope was a candle cupped in both hands.

“By then, your body would already be broken.” The words were cold water on hot iron.

Ling Yi saw she wasn’t fear-mongering; she’d felt the backlash herself like a hammer behind the ribs, and her tongue turned to sand.

Yekase smoothed her hair like calming ripples on a pond. “I’ll push new gear hard, so you can crush any enemy without gambling your bones. Deal?”

“Promise?” Her eyes lifted like the moon over eaves.

“Promise.” The reply was a knot pulled tight.

Ling Yi held out her pinky, small and stubborn like a sprouting twig.

Do we have to do the whole pinky-swear-or-bust routine? Yekase felt it was childish as paper windmills, but Ling Yi wouldn’t drop her hand, so after a minute of stalemate they hooked fingers like two fish snaring lines.

“I already had lunch,” Yekase said, her voice a warm blanket. “Professor will have a robot bring yours. Rest here this afternoon, like a stone in sun. I’ll be doing research with Professor F, so I can’t keep you company.”

“Mm…” The sound floated like a pebble rippling water.

What’s with this mood? It felt like a father apologizing to a feverish daughter, shadowed by office lights, like a cloud covering the sun.

“You feel like a busy working mom,” Ling Yi murmured, her words a teasing breeze.

“—Pff?!” The sputter burst like a popped seed.

No thanks to the whole mom thing. She didn’t have that mindset, and had no plans to grow it, like a field left fallow on purpose.

Rattled by one stray line, Yekase staggered out like a cat skittering on tiled floor.

Professor F said she’d wait at the lab to study magic and had even prepared tea and snacks, like lace on a page of formulas. She was the same as their first meeting: when discussing theory, she demanded a certain ambiance, like a painter needing north light. Yekase had grown up rural but lived long in a big city; she wasn’t about to gripe at a little bourgeois garnish, like a sprig of mint on ice.

Right then, Jiang Bailu sent over the study materials, like a courier bird dropping a sealed scroll. Afternoon felt perfect for fresh knowledge, like rain over parched fields.

The sub-base’s lab wasn’t quarry-big; it felt like a private villa tucked in pines, like a chessboard hidden in shade.

Yekase pictured her rental, cramped as a shoebox, and tasted the class gap like iron on the tongue. Even if she got that kind of money, she’d just stash it and invest, like a squirrel burying nuts.

She knocked; the sound pattered like light rain. She stepped in with a breath held like a diver.

“…What are you doing?” Her question hung like a paper crane.

“I’m waiting for you, Doctor,” Professor F said, voice bright as glass in sun.

“No, I mean… what’s with the outfit?” The words pointed like an arrow at a target.

On a sunlit wooden tea dais in the corner—why did a lab have a sun-deck tea set—Professor F wore a body-hugging purple mage robe and a pointy hat, like a violet foxglove after a storm. A black veil hid her face like a moth-wing, barely keeping their fragile disguise pact stitched, like a spiderweb trembling.

“I thought this would help shift my mindset, to step into a mage’s role,” Professor F said, solemn as a judge.

“Is that necessary? Not every Westerner walks the street in a mage robe,” Yekase said, dry as dust.

“That means someone does,” Professor F shot back, quick as a sparrow.

“Technically, yeah.” The concession fell like a leaf.

“Rigor is always good.” Her smile was a sunbeam through leaves.

…She’d somehow been comforted, as if the problem had been hers, like a mirror blaming the face.

The session hadn’t even started, and Yekase already felt a thin fatigue like dusk behind the eyes. Still, she strangled the urge to bail like a bird folding its wings, plugged her phone into the computer and projector, and opened the textbook Jiang Bailu sent, pages blooming like white sails.

“Magic,” Yekase said, pointer tapping like a metronome, “isn’t Infinite Power. Think of fantasy novels, like maps of strange islands. It’s energy drawn from nature, like wind pulled into a sail. No one’s really tried to blend magic and machines; most call it a sacrilege, like dumping dye in a holy spring. Westerners love building their own gods to worship, like sculptors with soft clay. This is my second track besides Flash Energy.”

“Fascinating. Let me join later,” Professor F said, eyes sparking like flint.

“Then you’ve got to cast a few spells yourself. First lesson: Celestial Speech. You chant it before any casting, like priming a pump. Short gaps, you can skip; long gaps, you re-prime with Celestial Speech.”

“Requirements… simple,” she said, scanning like a hawk.

Yekase remembered what happened when she learned this hello-world-tier spell, like touching a doorknob that bites. She watched Professor F close her eyes to study, and she edged back a half step, like a cat from a sloshing bucket.

After three silent repetitions, Professor F opened her eyes like shutters easing up.

Good. Nothing happened—no spark and no frost, like a sky that refuses storm.

Professor F scrolled with the remote, the click like a pebble. “If fire flickers or frost crystals form nearby when you learn Celestial Speech, it shows deep Sorcery, like a spring that won’t run dry. Sadly, I seem average.”

“Oh? That’s a thing?” Yekase’s brows lifted like two tiny sails.

A detail the public textbook never mentioned—this haul of material had paid off like finding a vein of ore. So her Sorcery flow was high? With her thrifty bent, she’d learned piles of low-cost support skills, like patchwork quilts. How much Sorcery had that rocket-ride Levitation Spell eaten? She’d better learn a legit flight spell next time, like a bird studying thermals.

“Next spells: Levitation Spell. Mind-Focusing Spell. And… Flame Burst Spell…” Professor F’s voice warmed like embers.

You recommend that to newbies too?!

“Flame Burst Spell?” Professor F’s tone leaped like a spark in dry grass.

This one was a born demolitionist, bones ringing like anvils.

“Fifty-degree or stronger liquor, 55.5 grams, finished within an hour,” Yekase read, the numbers neat as stitching. “Then shout ‘Flame Thrower!’—and you learn it.”

“Why the drinking?” Professor F tilted her head like a fox.

Snap!

A finger click cracked like a twig, and a robot rolled in like a silver beetle.

Yekase’s eye twitched like a tugged thread as the robot set two cups with ritual care and poured each an exact 55.5 grams, clean as a scale.

“Forty-year aged baijiu,” Professor F said, proud as a vintner.

“Hold up, you’re drinking now? You learning this and calling it a day?” Yekase asked, suspicion coiling like smoke.

“Doctor Yekase, is your tolerance low?” Her smile was a white cat’s.

“—Who’s scared of who!” The slam of her palm was thunder on a table.

Before Ling Yi, beer had been Yekase’s only friend, stacked in crates like little blue mountains. Pretty girl bingeing in a rental was a bizarre painting, but nobody saw, like a lantern under a bushel. Even swapping to baijiu, one or two rounds shouldn’t floor her, like waves against a sturdy rock.

“To a perfect special training.” Professor F raised her cup like a small moon. “Cheers!”

“Cheers!” The word rang like cymbals.

They tipped their heads and downed the shot, burn licking like dragonfire.

“Then… ‘Flame Thrower!’” Professor F’s shout cracked like a whip.

“Flame Thrower!” Yekase echoed, the syllables a flare.

A fuzzy sensation surged like a banner unfurling—exactly like an RPG pop-up telling you you’ve learned a new skill. Just like that, Yekase held her first attack spell like a hot coal in palm.

Cheeks flushed like peaches, Professor F mused, “So it’s Flame Burst Spell, yet we shout Flame Thrower. What if there’s also a magic called Flame Thrower? When learning that, what do we shout?” Her eyes danced like fireflies.

“Maybe you don’t shout… or maybe you shout Flame Burst Spell,” Yekase said, grin crooked like a crescent. “Some swap-meet mechanic. A little naughty.”

“Shall we test it? Robot, more!” Her voice chimed like bells.

The robot butler poured another exact 55.5 grams into both cups, steady as a waterfall.

They tossed it back like stones into surf.

“Flame Emission!” Professor F tried, voice slicing like a spark.

“It’s Flame Burst Spell!” Yekase countered, quick as lightning.

“Flame Burst Spell!” they called together.

…Nothing happened. The air stayed cool as a well.

“Seems Flame Thrower doesn’t exist. A pity,” Professor F sighed, breath curling like smoke.

“Not necessarily. What if the condition is to say nothing? If any sound equals failure, like spooking a deer,” Yekase said, eyes narrowing like shutters.

“Good point! Robot, more!” Her command was a drumbeat.

The robot poured 55.5 grams again, unwavering as a metronome.

They tossed it back, burn blooming like scarlet peonies.

“This stuff’s great…” Professor F murmured, voice syrupy as honey.

“Don’t make a sound!” Yekase hissed, finger to lips like a blade.

“Now you just made a sound too,” Professor F whispered, a wicked smile like a fox tail.

“No helping it. Again,” Yekase sighed, resignation like rain.

The robot poured once more, relentless as tides.

…

……

“Professor, this afternoon’s training—” The door opened like a curtain.

Dragon God Shark stepped into the lab, stride sleek as a sea predator.

What met her eyes was not two scholars bathing in rational light, like twin stars in a dark dome. It was the exact opposite, like a hurricane had chewed the room.

Two—no, two puddles of women, drunk to slurry, lay slumped like melted candles. Reason was nowhere, only a mad whirlpool as if a tornado had kissed the floor.

The monitor slept black as a pond at night. The Doctor’s white coat was wrinkled like fallen laundry. The Professor wore a full mage cosplay robe, purple as dusk. Both sprawled over the wooden table like shipwrecks… with several empty bottles lined up like bleached bones—wasn’t that baijiu!

“—Professor?! Doctor?!” Her voice cracked like ice.

“Mm…?” came a murmur like a drowsy bee.

“More, more!” another voice slurred, wave-washed.

They looked exactly like alleyway drunks, common as stray cats at dusk.

Dragon God Shark realized her own strength couldn’t wake these two sleeping beauties, like tugging a mountain with a string. All she could do was leave quietly, steps soft as fog.

She ran into Ling Yi near the dorms, the corridor calm as a river.

“Good afternoon, Miss Flashblade Red,” she greeted, voice level as a blade.

“Good afternoon.” Ling Yi’s reply was gentle as light on steel.

Ling Yi had put on Kagari again, sleek as a red-breasted hawk, but the red glow that used to pulse on the armor had dimmed to bare metal, like embers gone to ash.

“How’s your body?” The question landed like a feather.

“Fully recovered… though you won’t believe it,” Ling Yi said, eyes dropping like falling petals. “In this morning’s fight, I felt something snagging like weeds in a stream. I forced it open with Mind Energy, and it turned into… that. Doctor pretended nothing happened and didn’t tell me.”

“How about a trip to the nearest city to clear your head?” Dragon God Shark’s tone was even, yet concern flowed under it like warm current. “One or two of us going back and forth won’t attract notice. I’ll persuade the Professor.”

“…Mm. Thank you, Dragon God Shark.” Gratitude bloomed like a late flower.

Then I’ll go shopping with the Doctor… Ling Yi thought, the idea fluttering like a ribbon. She still didn’t even know which island this was, a dot on a blue sheet. Her hometown, Twin Towers City, sat only two hundred kilometers from the coast like a gull’s hop, but she’d visited the sea only once or twice.

Dragon God Shark seized the moment like a fisher casting. “By the way, that green armor—was that one of your forms?”

“Mm? Yes. The Doctor gave it to me recently,” Ling Yi said, voice clear as spring water.

“Recently means…?” Her gaze was a steady lantern.

“Before we came here for special training,” Ling Yi answered, simple as a nod.

So she’d used that key to stand in during the Prismatic War Chariot incident, then handed it off to Flashblade Red as originally planned… Dragon God Shark talked herself into it, thoughts settling like sand. She turned to leave, steps quiet as falling snow.

“Um—” The syllable hung like a snagged thread.

“Anything else?” Dragon God Shark paused, profile sharp as a cliff.

“…Nothing.” Ling Yi shook her head, the motion small as a leaf, and said no more, silence pooling like a moonlit well.